In considering Petronas’ bid to develop B.C.’s natural gas resources, it is vital that we consider the company’s track record.

In 2011, I had the opportunity to witness the destruction caused by a Petronas pipeline, while working with the international NGOGlobal Witness. While staying with the semi-nomadic Penan people of Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo), I heard testimony of how the company had treated them in the course of constructing the pipeline.

Although I had travelled to Malaysia Borneo to document the impact industrial logging was having on these people, the ongoing clearance for the Petronas pipeline emerged as an immediate concern.

Petronas has faced fierce local opposition to its 500 km pipeline crossing Malaysian Borneo to feed its LNG terminal in Sarawak. Previously remote, semi-nomadic tribes of the Bornean jungle have now been violently thrust into an industrialized landscape that is foreign to them and hostile to their way of life. They resisted this invasion, erecting futile barriers made of sticks, and met bulldozers armed only with traditional bow and arrows. The project has been marked by secrecy, including details surrounding the location of the proposed pipeline, giving very little time for locals to voice their opposition through formal channels, or to scrutinize terms of the project.

The history of the Penan is a tragic one, marked by successive waves of industrial activity since the 1980s that has left them marginalized. Much of Sarawak has been converted to oil palm plantation, following decades of rapacious logging for valuable hardwoods for export. Increasingly they are no longer able to maintain their way of life, and this has made them all the easier to disregard in the construction of the Petronas pipeline.

I was struck by how wide a corridor had been cleared for the pipeline, and the brute force that had been employed in carving its way through the dense jungle. The clay-based Bornean soil, previously held together by the roots of majestic trees, eroded into muddy pools, and clumped heavily around my boots. I can’t help but think what Petronas’ pipeline though rugged northern B.C. will look like (Pacific Northwest LNG has contracted TransCanada to build the pipeline), or how it will affect First Nations and local communities.

It could be this “low bar” way of operating in developing countries that has led the CEO of Petronas, Shamsul Abbas, to conclude that B.C. is a “high cost environment” in comparison. “The proposed fiscal package and regulatory pace in Canada threatens the global competitiveness of the PNWLNG project,” Abbas wrote.

This all leads to the question: does the B.C. government know how to use Google? Even a cursory background check would have revealed this company has a questionable track record. Either the B.C. government didn’t do its due diligence to find out who they were dealing with or they did, and ignored it, which is worse. Given the secrecy with which these and other LNG deals have been negotiated, this could very well be the case.

British Columbians have every right to scrutinize the companies that wish to exploit our natural resources, and to uphold the environmental and social safeguards that make this province a great place to live.

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